While taking a break from readings in preparation for one of my law classes, I log onto Facebook and freeze at what I see.
At the top of my news feed, CNN reports, “A former Louisville police officer has been indicted by a grand jury on three counts of wanton endangerment in the first degree for his actions on the night Breonna Taylor was killed by police.”
I pause. Let me understand something:
Only one officer was charged … for the shots he missed?
The pen falls from my hand as I lay my head on my desk. Not again, not again, not again.
“You have to work twice as hard to get just as far,” is a phrase that I, along with many other Black individuals, have heard over and over again throughout my life. Based on this, the solution is to get an education, get a seat at the table, and fight for change, right?
Apparently not.
Breonna Taylor was an innocent woman. She was educated, a front-line worker during the most serious public health crisis of our generation, and she was murdered in her own home while committing no crime. And it wasn’t just anyone who was responsible for her death—it was the state that entered and shot her dead.
Like so many of these police shootings, it was appalling. For months, we waited and protested for justice to be served. Praying for the state to finally see us as human beings, despite knowing the likely outcome—that historically, we have been prepared for this trauma.
In the end, the decision made on behalf of these three white men by a majority white court turned out to be what many expected: an act of casting Black lives by the wayside in order to defend their own. The decision brought me back to the night my family and I witnessed the injustice that was Trayvon Martin’s murder. Little did I know this wouldn’t be the last of a long and painful trend of Black people being subjected to police brutality—this time around with the whole world watching.
Unfortunately, the decision did not surprise me. One could say I was emotionally prepared for the disappointment this time. After all, barricades were put up and curfews were set the night before in anticipation of the public’s reaction. We knew what was going to happen. But it still hurts.
It hurts knowing that my people dying on camera has become a trend.
It hurts learning to appreciate a society that will beat you down then laugh at your scars.
It hurts to look at my younger cousins and know that in a few years, they could be next.
It hurts to know that as I sit behind this computer and pursue my education, I will still be rejected because “we’re not looking for your kind of people right now.”
It hurts to know that my skin seems so dirty, I am disposable.
Maybe an education and a seat at the table fighting for change just aren’t good enough.
Maybe I should just paint myself white?
People must realize that racism did not magically disappear because a Black man sat in the White House for eight years. We live in a world in which its most powerful country is one built on the abuse, exploitation, and death of my people, who continue to suffer.
The law protects us from public lynchings and ridicule, but it doesn’t stop us from being followed in stores, deterred from taking part in enrichment programs in schools, and questioned for living in the suburbs.
I want you to understand what goes on in a Black household. To know the fear of Black parents every time their children leave the house. To feel the anxiety of Black youth, each time they pass a police officer and to empathize with the low-grade depression settling into our young adults as they reflect on their futures.
Is it really worth it?
Although we are taught to love and embrace our heritage, we are tired of being targeted because we are Black. We are being legally executed on the basis of the hue of our skin and expected to simply move on as a community. If we do not, we are accused of race-baiting for daring to speak up.
Even the action of reading Breonna Taylor’s name has become a turn off for some of those who are not Black. They have become tired of hearing her story, the injustice her memory has faced, and about the Black Lives Matter movement. Not only do they not want to hear about the race problem, but Canadians in particular laugh at the idea that such unfathomable injustices could exist here.
Quite frankly, this way of thinking is ignorant. You cannot ignore or dismiss the issue simply because it doesn’t affect you, you are unsure of what to say, you have become ‘overexposed,’ or because you choose to see it as just an American problem, despite clear evidence it isn’t.
Look at the slaying of Breonna Taylor, the manhunt of Ahmaud Arbery, and the execution of George Floyd. In Canada, look at the abuse and secrecy surrounding the deaths of D’Andre Campbell, Abdurahman Hassan, and Regis Korchinski-Paquet. Realize these are only the situations we’ve seen publicly and there are still so many more left uncovered.
This is not an American issue. Black people don’t only exist in the U.S. Racism doesn’t just exist in the U.S., either. We are everywhere, it is everywhere–and this a global issue.
You may never truly understand my experiences as I have understood them, but it is essential that people outside the Black community recognize what is going on. It’s time to address the problem, and it must be addressed together.
Featured graphic by Sara Mizannojehdehi.
